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Cornell University

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Cornell University (pronounced /kɔrˈnɛl/, kor-nel) is a private Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, USA.

Cornell was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White as a coeducational, non-sectarian institution where admission was offered irrespective of religion or race. Its founders intended that the new university would teach and make contributions in all fields of knowledge—from the classics to the sciences and from the theoretical to the applied. These ideals, unconventional for the time, are captured in Cornell's motto, an 1865 Ezra Cornell quotation: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study."

Following the spirit of its motto, Cornell offers curricula in traditional liberal arts studies as well as in fields like engineering, agriculture, hotel administration, and city and regional planning. The university is broadly organized into seven undergraduate colleges and seven graduate divisions at its main Ithaca campus—for example, the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering—with each college and division defining its own academic programs in near autonomy. Cornell is one of two private land grant universities, and its seven undergraduate colleges include three state-supported statutory or contract colleges. The university also administers two satellite medical campuses, one in New York City and one in Education City, Qatar.

Cornell counts more than 255,000 living alumni, 28 Rhodes Scholars and 41 Nobel laureates affiliated with the university as faculty or students. The student body consists of over 13,000 undergraduate and 6,000 graduate students from all 50 states and 122 countries.